


RAINBOW

by suisei (nanakomatsus)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, Manga Spoilers, Pre and Post Timeskip, i just got really emotional, natsu best girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28283910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanakomatsus/pseuds/suisei
Summary: the story of hinata natsu’s volleyball
Relationships: Hinata Natsu & Hinata Shouyou
Comments: 5
Kudos: 89





	RAINBOW

**Author's Note:**

> allow me to rhapsodize about this special little miracle that’s been blooming in the background
> 
> very, and i cannot stress this enough, very inspired by rainbow - twice please please look up the lyrics [and](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ay9MM1HpSQ) listen to it while reading. this is natsu's song.
> 
> also inspired by [this](https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/marcus-rashford-england-national-team) article. it's a wonderful read.

Just like her brother, Hinata Natsu is born in the summer.

She is a dizzying, overwhelming force of joy, waddling around at full throttle as soon as she learns to put one foot in front of the other.  _ Yes, one by one, _ her mother coos softly, watching her with a tired smile while she cooks as the little girl traverses the space between the couch and the television.

There is a ruckus at the front door and soon, heavier footsteps are speeding down the hallways, an excited cry ringing throughout the house. There’s a clatter as he sheds his backpack and water bottle along the way.

“Natsu!” Shoyo calls out for her as their mother scolds him to keep his voice down,  _ the neighbours can hear you. _ Her ears perk up and she stumbles in an attempt to turn towards her older brother.

He catches her just before she falls,  _ woah there, slow down _ , he teases. He gently stands her upright, backing away slowly, shuffling on his knees to the other side of the room. His arms are outstretched, eyes alight, grinning and baring his teeth because that’s just how his little sister makes him feel.

“Come here! You can do it!”

She lets out an enthusiastic gurgle, mouth agape, drool streaming down the corners of her lips. And she takes a step towards him.

And another.

And another.

☀

Natsu thinks the ocean is very blue, and very, very big.

“Yes, it is,” her father says in agreement, nodding sagely. 

She can’t keep her focus on her half-built sandcastle anymore because the water sparkles  _ so _ . Also, there’s a light pitter-patter coming from a little ways away.

Shoyo jogs towards them and slows to a stop, breathing heavily. He reaches into his bucket and brandishes a gleaming  _ something _ .

“What’s that?” She asks, finally abandoning her architectural project. The castle for her doll Hime-sama can wait. He turns to her with a grin, handing it to her.

“It’s a muscle shell! M-U-S-C-”

“M-U-S-S-E-L, Shoyo,” their father corrects, going back to his newspaper.

“That’s what I said!” The boy harrumphs, turning his attention back to his newfound treasure, nestled safely between the small, small hands of his sister. 

She is awed by it, by how it looks  _ so  _ much prettier than the ocean. It shines silver, then a rainbow then a blinding white.

“Do you want to come look for more with me?” Shoyo half-whispers to her, crouching beside her. It’s like he’s proposing a special little mission for just the two of them. Like in those spy movies they watch together sometimes.

Her head snaps up, eyes bright. She nods vigorously and it looks like her head might fall off. He laughs, throwing his head back.

“Alright then!” He holds his arms out, making to whisk her away...

But she’s already zooming through the space between his legs at an alarmingly fast pace, kicking up the sand behind her heels, squealing excitably. 

☀

Natsu doesn’t like seeing her brother sad.

He doesn’t show it, but she knows he is because he doesn’t hug her back and spin her around when she greets him at the door. He mumbles his thanks and doesn’t try to kiss her when she gives him  _ two  _ pieces of her chicken nuggets. He drags his feet and doesn’t bid her  _ good night _ before going to bed.

She’s even more upset when she wakes up the next day and finds that he’s already gone to school earlier than usual. Then she remembers that maybe, he’s still sad about whatever happened. Maybe he doesn’t want everyone to see him cry.

So after school, she asks Mama if they can stop to buy some ingredients at the grocery store.

“I want to make a present for onii-chan,” she says, feeling a little sad herself. But as soon as they get home, she tells the sadness to go away and gets to work in the kitchen.

The smell wafts through the house. She watches the oven for a long, long time until the timer goes off, willing it to  _ please be yummy, please don’t give anyone a tummy ache. _

Mama refuses to help her pipe the icing after she messes one up so she sulks, arms crossed, eyes filling with tears. Shoyo isn’t home, so he can’t see her cry, so it’s okay, she’ll cry.

“But Natsu,” Mama soothes, “it’s your present, right? I’m sure he’ll love it anyway. Your brother is that kind of person. You can be, too, right?”

She sniffs and hiccups, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. “Okay.”

They turn out alright in the end and  _ oh, it’s already almost sundown, onii-chan should be home soon. _ She ducks behind the couch just as the front door slides open and the familiar voice of her brother echoes down the hallway,  _ I’m home. _

“Something smells good,” Shoyo says to himself, entering the living area before turning into the kitchen. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots the plate of cookies-

“Boo!” Natsu leaps out from behind him. He lets out a surprised yelp, jumping in place.

“Gosh, you scared me,” he whines. She tugs at his sleeve, guiding his hand towards the platter. She watches him expectantly as he chews and chews and chews and reaches for another one.

“What do you think? Do you like it?” She asks and beams when he grins at her with a thumbs up, mouth full of cookies.

“You were going for a sports theme, right? With the soccer balls?” He asks, licking his fingers. She freezes, turning to him, face going red, eyes welling up.

“They were supposed to be volleyballs…” She whimpers.

Shoyo blinks, realizing his mistake, then sputters, waving his hands wildly as if that would clear things up.

“I mean- volleyballs! I knew that!”

☀

Natsu doesn’t give up.

Even when the ball lands on her nose and she goes crying to Mama because there’s a cut on her lip as well. The next day, she tries again. It lands on her head this time. She tries again.

“So that’s where my ball went,” Shoyo’s voice comes from behind her. She turns to him, about to apologize,  _ sorry for taking it without asking, _ but it lands on her head  _ again _ . Hinata cries out in surprise, rushing forward to help her.

There is no need. She stands up calmly and goes to pick it up. With a small, apologetic smile she holds it out for him to take back. The corners of his eyes soften and he shakes his head.

“You can play with it today. But I’ll need it for school tomorrow, okay?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But be careful,” he gets up, making to leave, before she calls out to him.

“Can you show me? The thing you did yesterday.”

“Hm? Receives? Sure. But I’m not the best…”

“It’s okay! We can learn together!”

He smiles and nods, relenting. “You’re right.”

He spends time teaching her the day after, and after that as well. A few months later, she says to him, “You’ve become friends with the ball now!”

He looks at her, a little surprised, and grins.

On her birthday, they celebrate at home with a nice, yummy cake. They watch a movie together. Papa dozes off halfway through however, and they decide to pull in for the night.

On her desk is a volleyball with a little card stuck on top.

> _ happy birthday, natsu! here’s your present~  _
> 
> _ i hope we can both be friends with the ball from now on! _
> 
> _ \- shoyo  _

☀

Natsu likes Shoyo’s friends.

There is Tadashi, who gives her a very pretty notebook with a little padlock along with tiny keys attached to a ribbon so she won’t lose it. 

There is Hicchan, who gives her a set of recipe books; desserts from around the world. She promises to make them the next time they come over.

There is Kei, who is a little mean, but really funny because his face turns red when she feeds him the bread pudding she’d made. She even adds more chocolate chips to his bowl, to which he mumbles a thanks. She thinks it’s cute.

Then there is Tobio, who is quiet and mysterious and doesn’t say much but holds his plate out for a third serving of her special miso soup. His eyes are kind and he gives her a firm pat on her head before downing his refill in seconds.

Later, he and Shoyo excuse themselves to go out into the backyard, bringing a ball with them. She almost wants to join in but remembers that she’s in the middle of a game of UNO and wants to beat Kei, if only to see his face go red once more.

(She succeeds twice in a row.)

She heads out to call them in to give them their presents before they leave. As she gets closer to the backyard, she notices it is absent of any volleyball noises. She slowly peeks her head out from behind the screen to find them both standing under the old tree growing at the far end of the yard.

Their heads are tilted up to the sky, their shoulders brushing. They don’t seem to be talking. She watches them for a few moments, watches as they gently sway against each other, playfully nudging one another. A warm feeling spreads across her chest. 

They look like best friends. She’s happy her brother has a best friend.

“Shoyo! Tobio!” She calls out then. Her brother turns to her with a grin, waving her over.

“Do you want Kageyama to teach you some moves?” He offers, much to the apparent distress of his teammate, who shoots him a glare. Natsu giggles, shaking her head.

“Maybe some other time. I want to give you your presents now,” she says and winks at the dark-haired boy, who stiffly nods his thanks.

“Sure!” Shoyo chirps and pulls ahead. Tobio hesitates for a moment before Natsu tugs on his sleeve, beaming up at him.

“I can make time for classes at three on Saturdays!” She says with a mischievous grin.

☀

Natsu watches Shoyo’s game live for the first time at the Spring High semi-finals in his third year of high school. It is on a field trip with their neighbourhood’s under-12s volleyball club.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium is nothing like the Sendai City gymnasium. It is bigger, louder and much, much brighter. It is the sparkling stage of her dreams.

“Ow, my hand,” Emiko whines, though her attempts at pulling away are null.

“Don’t you see that, Emi? It’s huge! It’s- it’s like the ocean!” Natsu says, pulling her teammate along towards the railings to get a better look at the teams warming up down on the court.

“We should stick with the others. Daichi-oniichan said it’s  _ real  _ easy to get lost around here,” the dark-haired girl says cautiously, maneuvering them through the crowd to steer them both back to their group. Natsu continues her animated babbling, unperturbed.

“And those courts, they’re like, squeaky clean!”

They don’t get lost, thankfully (though that run-in with a group of wild Vabos did feel like a stampede). It is exactly eleven o’clock when they settle into their seats, having scarfed down their mashed potato as soon as they’d heard the announcement for the start of the next match.

Natsu waits with bated breath, hands curling tightly around her black-and-orange balloon sticks.

“Karasuno High School!” Comes the voice over the intercom, ringing throughout the large space. She jumps up, cheering as the team lines up at the side of the court.

“Number 10, Hinata Shoyo!” She waves her arms around wildly, very nearly hitting Emiko and a couple of her other teammates in the face. There he is, her brother, jogging to high-five his coaches. 

Shoyo had grown a little taller over the summer. It was just a  _ little _ , but Natsu could tell, because now, he can help Mama get stuff off the second-highest shelf in the store room without tippy-toeing (but he still has to, to reach the top shelf. It’s an improvement anyway).

The crowd settles. But her heart doesn’t. In fact, it feels like it’s about to burst out of her chest. It’s like when she’s in class, waiting for her name to be called on to receive her math test back. Or when she’s on the court, playing against the team from another neighbourhood. 

The players take their positions. Shoyo’s back is turned to them but she thinks she knows what kind of face her brother is making. He’s making that face where his eyes glass over, his tongue sticks out (just like her, when she’s working on her art homework, Mama had said). 

She’s seen it on the television. She’s replayed it enough times to know.

Then, there it is, that first whistle.

Natsu watches as Tobio tosses the ball up in the air and begins his run up. It is the most graceful thing she’s ever seen; the way his knees bend and lift him off the floor, the way his arm reels back like a rubber band.

Most of all, it is the crane of his neck, looking up at the ball, sucking in a breath. It is that moment of calm she loves. She finds herself slowly rising from her seat, holding her own breath.

_ Ah, _ she thinks to herself,  _ so this is what onii-chan had meant when he said that volleyball is a sport where you’re always looking up. _

☀

Natsu cries at the airport.

She didn’t want to, didn’t want to let him see that she was going to miss him  _ this  _ much. She knows he’s doing this to get stronger, to be closer to volleyball. She wants him to, because she likes seeing her brother happy and she knows volleyball makes him happy (because she’s beginning to feel the very same way too). 

But when his palm comes to rest on the top of her head and he’s grinning down at her, teeth and all with his baggage in his hands and a camping bag on his back, she can’t help it. She blubbers.

“C’mon, it’s just a while! I’ll call you whenever I can!” He says reassuringly. She furiously wipes at her eyes, making an angry sound when she finds that the tears just won’t stop.

“I’ll miss you, so just hang in there until I come back, okay?” He says, softer now, pulling her close.

“And you’ll teach me new stuff when you get back?” She manages to ask, through her blurred vision and snotty nose. Shoyo nods firmly.

“Yeah, of course!”

“And you’ll tell me about the beaches?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

“Promise!”

(Shoyo sends her lots of pictures; of his new apartment, his new room, the view from his balcony and the beach,  _ oh the beach _ . She asks Mama to print the picture out so she can stick it on her wall. 

She sends lots to him, too. She sends pictures of the cookies she bakes, the curry she kind-of succeeds at making and her teammates’ reactions to them. She gets sad thinking that he can’t taste any of it, but then promises that she’ll make him all kinds of yummy food when he comes home.)

☀

Natsu practices, and practices and practices.

Sometimes she practices so early, so hard that she’s tired by the time the sun comes up over the mountains. She thinks the sky is very pretty. She thinks this every morning when it’s painted a brilliant crimson or a muted orange or a greyish purple.

Or even when it’s dotted with stars and it’s cold and dark. It’s like the blanket she pulls off and over herself when she wakes up and goes to sleep.

The route she takes is different from her brother’s because her school is in the opposite direction, through the farms and town. So one day, she decides to trace his path as best as she can, to maybe get a glimpse of the view he saw everyday when he was her age.

She ends up fifteen minutes late to practice and gets three extra sets of suicides during their fitness session as punishment. It’s fine, because she can’t wait to text him what she saw that morning.

(The mountains make for good stamina training, she realizes after practice and it clicks,  _ so that’s why oniichan can play the way he does. _ She decides to take that route every weekend on her way and back from her neighbourhood club sessions.)

She finds herself thinking about her brother a lot throughout middle school. Maybe because he doesn’t have much time for her anymore. He’s been busy ever since coming back from Brazil. Busy with volleyball, of course.

And so is she. 

That’s why she’s been training so hard. That’s why she finds herself in their backyard every night, training against the wall until her parents tell her to go to sleep. That’s why she obsessively picks apart every article in Volleyball Monthly and writes down every recipe she can find in there. That’s why she’s the one holding the keys to the gym, first to arrive, last to leave.

Also, maybe it’s because she wants to do extra well this time around. Not because she’s a third year and wants to make it to Inter one more time with the team that’s taught her so much (though of course,  _ of course _ she wants that as well). 

But this time around, she wants to do it for herself, especially.

She wants to be good, so good she doesn’t doubt herself anymore. So good she can join a team that’s  _ so good _ too and they’ll be the  _ greatest. _ So good she’ll find someone who loves volleyball as much as she does, or even more.

A month later, the final whistle blows. She’s staring at her hands, red and warm and stinging. Her eyes brim with tears as she bunches them into fists and they line up to thank the crowd.

A month after that, a letter arrives. Mama tells her about it offhandedly while they cook dinner together. She’s staring at the piece of paper in her hands, white and cold and smooth.

> **To: niichan**
> 
> _ < got the recommendation letter! _

☀

Unlike her brother, Natsu makes it to the Spring High finals in her second year of high school.

It is the stage of her dreams, the same one she’d seen from above at the age of ten, watching her brother. 

_ No, it isn’t the same, _ she thinks to herself with a smile, zipping her windbreaker up as they file into the tunnel. She’s one-upped him. Karasuno never made it to the finals, but Niiyama, Niiyama will win it  _ all. _

After all, they are the Queens.

She steps out of the tunnel. She knows her brother is somewhere around, he’d promised to come watch. 

_ (I’ll bring Kageyama, too, if you want him around, _ he’d said over dinner the day before they left. She nodded enthusiastically.)

They’ll be watching her. They’ll  _ all _ be watching her.  _ Ah, _ she relishes this feeling as they call her name over the speakers.

_ Number 10, Hinata Natsu. _

She sucks in a breath, bending her knees, tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth. The whistle blows.

The other team’s server begins her run up. Natsu’s eyes train on the ball, up up  _ up _ it goes. The lights of the stadium aren’t so blinding anymore. The floor is squeaky clean under her feet. She’s gotten used to it.

A sound like a whip cracking resounds throughout the silent space, like someone cracking open the vacuum of space.  _ What a beautiful sound. _

The ball slices through the air.  _ What a beautiful view. _

Her body moves of its own volition, arms outstretched, perfectly straight. She sees it connect with her skin, with the space between her thumbs and wrists. 

_ What a wonderful feeling. _

She smiles. 

Just like her brother, Hinata Natsu is happiest when she’s playing volleyball, calling out,  _ one more time! _ again and again and again.

**Author's Note:**

> the [timeskip special illustration](https://twitter.com/haikyu_com/status/1341685018150666240?s=20) was revealed yesterday and I haven’t been the same since. natsu’s very, very brief fragment of a storyline is really one of the most full circle moments in my opinion.


End file.
